Page:An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal.djvu/108

 AS AUSTEALIAX LANGUAGE.

��CHAPTER III.

��OF THE VERB.

THE verbs undergo no change to indicate either number or person, but the stem-fcn-ms vary in respect to the sort of agency- employed, Avhether personal or instrumental, and also according to the manner of doing or being ; a?, {a) when I do anything to myself, or (b) to another; or (c) I do anything to another and he reciprocally does it to me ; or (d) when I continue to be or to do ; or (e) when the action is doing again, or (/") when per- mitted to be done by this or that agent ; or (y) by another agent ; or (A) when a thing acts as an agent, or (i) is used as an instrument. Verbs are reduplicated to denote an increase of the state or action. All verbs are declined by particles, each of which particles contains in its root the accident attributed to the verb in its various modifications ; as, assertion, affirmation, nega- tion, privation, tendency, existence, cause, permission, desire, purpose; thus are. formed moods, tenses, and participles. The participles are formed after the manner of their respective tenses, and are declined either as verbal nouns or as verbal adjectives.

Of the Kinds oe Yekus. Yerbs are either Transifive or Intransitive, both of which are subject to the following accidents, viz. : —

1. Active-transitive, or those which denote an action that passes from the agent to some external object ; as, 'I strike him,' bun tan bon bag. This constitutes the active ro/cr, which states what an agent does to another, or, what another agent does to him, in which latter case it is equivalent to the English passive A'oice; e.y.jbuntan bon (literally, 'strikes him,') implies that some agent now strikes him, ai\d means ' he is now struck,' the nominative pronoun being omitted in order to call attention to the object. But when this accusative or object is omitted, the attention is then called to the act which the agent performs ; as, bun tan bag, ' I strike,' expressed often by 'I do strike.'

2. Act ive-intrannitive, or those which express an action which has no effect upon any external object except the agent or agents themselves ; that is, the agent is also the object of his own act ; consequently the verb is necessarily reflexive ; as, b u n k i 1 1 e li n bag, 'I struck myself.' This constitutes the ' reflexive ' modifica- tion of the verb.

�� �